Hormonal Imbalance

I’m going to get personal and share what has been going on with me for the past couple years as a woman. At first, I thought something was terribly wrong with me. My periods were getting extremely heavy, so much so, that I couldn’t leave my bedroom because I was in extreme pain and discomfort. Forget going to parties or events because I would be down for the count and the bleeding was just enough to make me think I was dying!

My husband, who was then my fiancee’, I know was rethinking if he should indeed marry me. Like clockwork, I would turn into a person he didn’t even know a few days before the dreaded day would present it’s vampire control over my entire being. The kids would put up a cross whenever I walked into a room, as it seemed that I would snap at the slightest remark.

Truly, I was scared. It was getting harder to plan anything social and I was extremely nervous about wearing a wedding dress! I also started to notice that I was overly tired, especially in the afternoon. Dealing with picking up kids from school, cooking and spending time with my fiancee’ was becoming more and more difficult. Plus I was gaining weight in my mid section and it seemed no amount of diet or exercise was getting rid of it!

Then there were the rare times when I had my wonderful amazing fiancee’ all to myself for a date night and found I had no sex drive? I love this man with all my heart and he was feeling neglected because there was just no desire on my part?

All of this was just too confusing for me to understand, so I decided to speak to my OBGYN who was a female. I figured we were close in age, perhaps she would be able to figure out what was wrong with me? She decided to have me do a ultra sound to see if I had any cysts or fibroids, which are very common for most women in their 40s.

The results came back negative and she said she couldn’t understand what my problem was? I explained that I was planning my wedding and wearing a white dress was truly making me anxious. So she put me on a birth control pill called, “Seasonique.” This pill sounded great, no period for four months! I was sold on the spot!

I figured why not try it and at least get through my wedding. My wedding was in September and I started taking this pill in May. The first month seemed pretty good, a little spotting and I had no period! Then all of sudden I started bleeding, which my doctor said spotting was normal.I didn’t have quite the heaviness or the pain, but it lasted almost a month. All of a sudden huge blood clots the size of Texas were coming out of me! I felt like I was dying again and called my doctor who said to come in right away!  As embarrassed as I was already, she said she had to exam me while I was gushing all this blood! She went on to explained that I was lucky not to have an emergency DNC to stop the bleeding and told me I had to multiply taking these pills in hopes that the bleeding would stop. She explain that I would feel nauseous, but that this was my only solution.

The wedding was one month away and I was desperate at this point, so I began taking multiple birth control pills so that I wouldn’t bleed. Three one day, two for a few days and then down to one. If I started to bleed, I would repeat the process. I was also taking iron because I was extremely tired all the time and I felt like a big cream puff from all the swelling around my belly.

Forget having a honeymoon! That would have to wait a while, just get me through the wedding were my only thoughts. I guess the stars lined up for me on my wedding day because it was the most amazing day of my life and everything seemed to just come together, in spite of all the health issues.

We had out of town relatives visiting and staying with us from Australia and everything then started to really take it’s toll on me after the wedding. I stopped taking the pills and immediately started bleeding again. This time it gradually became heavier until I was completely hemorrhaging in the bathroom of a restaurant!

I called my OBGYN after hours and got her father. You see my OBGYN works in the same office with her father, so they are a father and daughter team. He instructed me to go to the emergency room of the nearby hospital immediately!

Two weeks after my dream wedding and I’m in the emergency room of a hospital filled with people down with the swine flu! They check me in, make sure I have insurance and then put me on a cot hooked up to an IV of morphine while I continued to bleed!

Every half hour of so a nurse would come in to check my vitals and after a couple hours, another doctor came in to exam me. I was told that my doctor would be there shortly. A bed pan was brought in and I continued to disburse liver size blood clots. “I’m dying for sure.” “This is it for me, how could I bleed this much and live?”

Finally after about 4 hours, my doctor and her father appeared together and proceed to tell me that they had to do an emergency DNC to stop the bleeding. The hospital was completely full and I would have to wait my turn for this procedure. So I bleed for another 3 hours before I went into surgery at midnight. I asked my doctor just before they wheeled me into that cold sterile room, “What is wrong with me?” She replied, “Honey, you just have one of those uterus’ that we would have said hysterectomy to years ago, now there are less evasive things and I really think we will have to eventually ablate you.”

A uteral ablation is when they remove the lining of the uterus completely.  The next thing I knew, I was signing a bunch of papers, being given what seemed to be my last rites by the anethesiologist as a milky white fluid flowed through my vein. I later learned that was prophidole, the same drug that killed Michael Jackson!

45 minutes later I awakened to a nurse asking me if I wanted her to call my husband.  The next day my doctor called me to see how I was doing. She explained that I should stay on these pills because she thought the bleeding would come back. I said no way! These pills seemed to make me worst not better and I didn’t feel she was trustworthy after that. Why would she want me to stay on these pills? It just didn’t sense, especially at my age!

My husband encouraged me to give it some time and see if my periods would get better off of the pills before giving into a possible surgery. I started researching finding another OBGYN that could maybe help me with my problem when a girlfriend started talking to me about bio identical harmone replacement creams.

She explained, that she had all the same symptoms I had and also thought she was dying! It was a blessing from the universe to know I wasn’t alone and there was a possible solution. She also said she lost 20 lbs the first month she did the creams and got her sex drive back!

My husband was sold on exploring this and I was getting excited at the thought of feeling normal again! Although my periods were better after the DNC, I still felt tired most of the time.

I found a great OBGYN who actually works with famed bio identical expert, Prudence Hall. My new OBGYN had my blood work done and got my records back from my old OBGYN and found that I had a cyst the size of a small plum in my uterus. I was never told that!  Although, cysts are commonly the reason for heavy period bleeding, my old OBGYN didn’t even tell me I had one, much less the size of a small plum!

Now I must have another ultra sound tomorrow morning to see if this size has increased from two years ago! My blood test came back and showed that I have almost no progesterone which is why my libido is almost non existent  and my estrogen is high, although not as high as it would be if I were going into menopause; so that explains the weight gain. She recommended I see Prudence Hall for the bio identical topical creams.

I feel optimistic that I may have a solution to this problem now and wanted to share this personal experience with any woman who may be going through the same issue, as I now know there are many. I’m hoping to make some progress soon with this issue of mine and wish you love and light if you are going through the same thing.

Devin